Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [178]
The President heard me out, but I soon learned that I had not been persuasive enough. Bush approved an $18 billion increase for the department, about half of what I had recommended. I was disappointed, but others were furious. Some conservatives called Bush’s defense spending plan “inadequate and reckless” and urged that I resign in protest.4
By late summer I was not gaining the traction necessary to carry out the President’s plans. Not only were we not getting the funding we needed, but also a large number of his civilian nominees remained unconfirmed by the U.S. Senate. Then, that August, White House chief of staff Andy Card delivered still more bad news: With a flagging economy, revised projections from the Congressional Budget Office were showing that the deficit would be even higher than had been predicted. Card said it was likely that DoD would get an even lower level of funding than the President had previously approved.
As I encountered the expected opposition to my initiatives within the Pentagon’s five walls, there was a palpable sense that inertia was playing a winning hand. Washington turned to its favorite summer pastime: speculating about a cabinet shake-up. “There’s been talk on the Hill—generated no doubt by Rumsfeld’s detractors, a fairly large generating source up there—that he might be on the way out soon,” wrote a columnist in the Washington Post. The criticism centered on my plans to transform the U.S. military. The article noted that a “sweepstakes” had already begun on who might succeed me.5
I knew how important it was to impart a sense of urgency and seriousness of purpose within the Pentagon. The moment there was any sign that I was backing off the reforms the President had promised, and that I was convinced were needed, they would be doomed. So I upped the ante. I gave a speech directly to the entrenched interests in the Pentagon and in Washington.
“The topic today,” I began, “is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America.”
This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: Our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy. Not the people, but the processes. Not the civilians, but the systems. Not the men and women in uniform, but the uniformity of thought and action that we too often impose on them.6
I stated that in the Pentagon, despite an era of scarce resources taxed by mounting threats, money was disappearing into duplicative duties and bloated bureaucracy. This was not because of greed, I said, but because of gridlock. Innovation was stifled not by ill intent but by institutional inertia.
The reception my speech received was polite. I knew some in the audience agreed with me. Others did not. “RUMSFELD DECLARES WAR ON BUREAUCRACY,” read some headlines.7 That was fair enough.
When I delivered that speech, I was worried, but not about my longevity in the office of the secretary of defense. I planned to serve at the pleasure of the President as long as I could be effective and not a day longer. But I was seriously concerned that we had a Department of Defense that was not ready for the challenges coming toward our country. The one thing I knew for sure was that challenges would come, and probably from unexpected sources. “The clearest and most important transformation is from a bipolar